Current Art Updates & Future Projects

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” –Pablo Picasso

My Art courses this spring

Print shop Balcony in the Rain by Ciarra Stebbins.

Last semester I dipped my toes into the realm of printmaking and painting, and I am continuing that this semester, as well as trying out some 3D work—ceramics! I was honestly a little nervous to take ceramics since I am primarily a 2D artist, and some of my past 3D experience had a lot of misses. I’m happy to say though, that ceramics has been incredible fun so far, and pretty refreshing! There is something nice about the process of working with clay, and you may be surprised at how many principals from other mediums cross over! I can very easily lose track of time in the ceramic studio. It’s been a very calming experience.

The elements of craftsmanship and touch play a big role not only in ceramics, but also printmaking and painting. This is a part of working in the studio that I love, since it is really about the process of building up an image or form, and each step feels just as necessary as the last one. I’ve gained some pretty cool skills from working on craftsmanship, such as building frames, which has been more important than you would realize!

Real world experience

Tiger Lily and Ciarra Stebbins.

http://www.vagazette.com/life/va-vg-wcac-wm-0214-story.html

Just recently, my fellow senior art majors and I put together a professional show at one of our local gallery’s. For many of us, this was a very new experience since we normally show our work for the campus community, but this time we were presenting our work to the general public! I showed a total of 4 pieces, 3 of which were prints of mine and one watercolor piece. Both openings for the show (one for members and one for the public) went very well and it was so interesting to see which pieces people asked me questions about. Overall, I would say that my most popular piece was my watercolor sketch of my character Tiger Lily. I was pretty happy about this since this is also a favorite of mine.

Tiger Lily by Ciarra Stebbins (@Ciarra_13).

Beyond assignments

Dragon by Ciarra Stebbins.

Outside of general assignments, working on various drawings, paintings etc…I do my best to purse my own little art projects, mostly in what I consider my illustrative style. Since October when I took place in Inktober (a monthly challenge where you create an ink drawing everyday) and completed it; I thought it would be fun to give myself some kind of monthly challenge throughout the year. Of course this can be difficult to balance with everything else I’m doing, but I’m not going to stress about missing a day two, just as long as I draw something every day!

So for the month of March, I’m planning to do some illustrations based around Mythology! MythoMarch as I’m calling it! My basic prompt list is available at my Instagram, so if you would like to join, please do! Use the Hashtag #MythoMarch and tag either @Gossamery_dreams and/or @Ciarra_13 and share with us your creations! Art, photography, writing…it’s all welcomed!

Along with this, I have been finishing up an older series of mine of Artist Trading cards. I have been doing some Youtube videos about it, as well as posting previews and the finish pieces on my social medias. Once the series is finished, I plan to post all the cards up onto my Redbubble which is currently in the works!

It’s nice to set some littler goals for yourself to look forward each month to keep you motivated!

Another big project I’ve been working on for awhile now is nearing its finally stages. It consists of 12 illustrations that I plan to sell as prints on Redbubble as well as the originals in our store! More updates to come on that! 😉

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Thank you everyone for reading this little update of mine! If you are interested to learn more about my work or process, please do leave a comment saying so, because I would love to cover the topics that you guys are interested in!